Tahanea Boobie Bird Motus

Next stop on the Tahanea tour was 3 Boobie Bird Motus. There are several small islands (motus) where boobie birds hang out and have their babies. Actually they do that on most of these motus, but this one supposedly has no human activity evidence (like copra coconut harvesting). Once palms have been planted for this purpose, much of the undergrowth that protects these ground nesters, is removed or dies from lack of enough sun.

When we woke there was a large cumulus cloud that looked like half of it had become water and fell from the sky.

The morning sun turned the rain in to a wide horizontal rainbow. So pretty!

It has been 10 days since we left Tahiti and we have run out of french baguettes. So I decide to make my first attempt at making bread. The first one did not come out well. I had not intended to make flat bread! Mike ate it anyway, but I did not think it was very good. So second attempt with the help of some other yeast from Birgit on Pitufa and vola' actual bread. I had just bought those yeast packets in Tahiti, so I was surprised to find out it was bad.

The next few days we had Virginia made Apple butter and Mexican Apricot jelly on home baked bread!

Mike and I walked around the largest of the 3 motus, but the third one looked the most inviting. I still think sometimes that I need to pinch myself, knowing I am really here after all these years!

We saw several trees and bushes flowering. There were orange flowers:

As well as these long lovely purple flowers.

Pitufa was very saddened to see that someone had made a copra camp on this motu, which had not been here the year before.

The very inquisitive Sandpiper was watching us closely.

Then he seemed to even follow us. These little guys are on the brink of extinction though, sadly.

Miguel is hanging loose on the motu in Tahanea!

Bird prints in the sand! Someone has been here recently.

Then just ahead of us we spot them, Curlews! These guys fly back and forth from here to Alaska! They come here also to have their babies.

As we rounded the back side of the motu, this fairy tern flew right over Mike's head.

A very inviting sand bar between motus.

The fairy terns were now everywhere.

They kept flying closer and closer, until he was right over me.

Of course the Boobie bird did the same. They are like dive bombers, soaring over the water until they spot a fish and then strait into the water after him.

Got this amazing shot of both a Blue faced Boobie and a Fairy tern with my little Fuji XP waterproof camera.

The Frigate birds are notorious robbers. They will steal a fish from another bird or torment it until it drops the fish.

Masked Boobies have mostly white feathers, black on their wings, with a yellow beak and small back feathers right around their face, which looks like a mask.

This is both a Masked Boobie and a Brown Boobie, watching us closely from their nests as we walk by. (not too close tho!)

This Masked Boobie flew past to make sure we were not getting too close.

So beautiful in flight!

Here you can see the undergrowth is quite thick with not too many palms. Perfect for building and hiding a nest!

The sun was getting low and the shadow of this palm quite long.

Yes I really am under a palm tree in the South Pacific!!

We see many things along the shoreline. First this crab tries to disappear in the rubble.

This is a spyder conch, live in the water.

And there was some gnarly driftwood with washed up blue plastic. We pick up trash when ever we can, especially plastic!!

There are three small reefs along these motus, so of course we had to snorkel down and see who was living there! Mike found a big school of fish circling in this sandy area surrounded by coral.

Here you can see the striped Redfin Bream in the sub adult phase, as well as Humpback Snappers.

This coral mound shows a Yellow tail Emperor swimming by and what I believe to be a baby Anemone fish.

He is so cute, but did not find one like him in the book.

Several Bluefin Trevally, which is a type of Jack, watched us with curiosity.

You can really see their blue fins and spots in this shot.

A coral bloom.

Looks like a giant group of small crystals how it grows.

A first for me, an orange sponge.

The blue and purple lipped clams glow with iridescence in the sunlight.

One of my favorites, the Morish Idol with a few Damisel fish swimming about.

A good sized Parrotfish, who munch on coral with those beak like mouths.

The Saddled Butterflyfish has cute markings. 

The Chevroned Butterflyfish has a black circle around his face when looking at him head on.

But from the side you can see his Chevron markings.

The Five Striped Wrasse is quite colorful with his purple body and green stripes.

These Solanders Toby fish are colored with iridescent blue spots and have an orange tail. Not seen any if any of these guys before either!

And the Coup-de-grace of our snorkel was this Leopard Wrasse with his black and white spots and yellow fins and belly.